1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally concerned with automatic distribution apparatus used to orient objects of any kind and distribute them to a workstation of any kind.
It is more particularly directed, although not necessarily exclusively so, to the situation in which the objects are hollow bodies, for example containers which have a neck, i.e. bottles.
Bottles must necessarily be offered up to a workstation for filling them with the neck at the top.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The distribution apparatus usually employed to impart this orientation to them includes a feed hopper adapted to receive the objects to be distributed loose, at least one take-up corridor that dips into the feed hopper, a longitudinal take-up conveyor in the take-up corridor adapted to drive the objects, a selective turning device adapted to allow the objects to pass through it when they arrive a first way round and to turn them if they arrive a second, opposite way round, and a take-off conveyor fed by the selective turning device.
In practice there is a plurality of take-up corridors side-by-side and each has a take-up conveyor, a selective turning device and a take-off conveyor.
In practice, when the objects to be distributed are bottles, the neck is toward the rear on the take-off conveyors.
Distribution apparatus of the above type is described in particular in U.S. Pat. No. 3,776,346.
Distribution apparatus of the above type, in which the take-off conveyors are in practice simple chutes, has proved satisfactory and may continue to do so.
It nevertheless has the disadvantage of requiring an operative to be present to monitor its operation.
This is because various incidents can disrupt its operation.
For example, the selective turning device at the upstream end of a take-off conveyor may develop a fault as a result of which a bottle on that take-off conveyor has the neck at the front.
If the objects to be distributed are synthetic material bottles, a bottle that has been crushed as a result of the handling to which it has been exposed may have a sufficiently large transverse dimension to become jammed in the take-off conveyor, causing congestion upstream thereof.
To overcome this drawback, the previously mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,776,346 provides each take-off conveyor with an individual sensor responsive to the prolonged presence of an object at its location and adapted to stop the corresponding take-up conveyor accordingly.
Apart from the fact that this entails providing each take-up conveyor with individual clutch means, an object can become jammed in the take-off conveyor as soon as it enters it and therefore before reaching the sensor with which the take-off conveyor is provided, which renders the sensor ineffective.
Although such incidents are relatively infrequent in practice, each incident requires the intervention of the operative responsible for monitoring the system, to eliminate the defective object and/or to restart all or part of the distribution apparatus. Despite the relative infrequency with which such intervention is required, the operator necessarily has to be present at all times.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,574,939 provides each take-off conveyor with a sensor adapted to stop an object which is the wrong way round.
As previously, however, this type of incident still requires the intervention of an operative to remove the object that is the wrong way round.
A general aim of the present invention is an arrangement for automatically dealing with an object before it enters a take-off conveyor and which has other advantages.